YouSaid · the spoken record

Bryan R. Johnson

lines on the record: 28
first: 2019-10-30
most recent: 2019-10-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Get lucky, but you need to have a real business idea that's differentiated. It's something that you feel passionate about, and you've got to show up two weeks after giving birth and being like, okay, here I go. What am I going to do? All the discussions I've had with entrepreneurs can be really lonely and it can be difficult. And so trying to find people who can help guide you through that, and I think one of the great things about this conference is entrepreneurs building a network amongst themselves and being able to talk to each other about these same issues that they all face.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Be committed to what you're doing, know what you're trying to solve. I think Ryan's advice is you try to go start up a company saying, I want to go start a billion dollar company and sell it for X. It's not.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The future of entrepreneurship is exciting, and just being around people like these two who have started their own businesses and the passion you feel for what they're trying to do and what they're trying to build. I think the ability to start a business and scale it, given where technology is now is phenomenal and only growing. And you can come up with a great idea and you can reach the world incredibly quickly as long as it's a good idea and then you go execute on it. So I think it's a great time to be starting a business as they both observe. It's not as glamorous as it sounds. It's hard work and there's failure along the way. But if you've got the right business model and the right people behind it, you're going to be able to be successful.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really tough and it's really tough because even if you pay a lot, people still can't see this future of home ownership and settling down. It's like you need some level of certainty in your life to be satisfied. And if you're looking forward, you go, I'm doing really well, but I can't buy a house here. So it's a frustrating situation for me as an entrepreneur to watch that and like see my team suffer through that. So we've been doing a lot of hiring in other markets and had a lot more success. But in our core, which is where 200 of our 300 technologists are in San Francisco, it's tough to scale.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I mean, I think to Ryan's point when you have a good business that's growing fast, people are really excited to work with you. So we've been really fortunate that we've been able to find people and grow our team pretty quickly.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We said we've got to be at scale in order to have the economics work in our favor. And now as the number seven player, at some point, you have to, you've got the minimum viable scale and you need to start figuring out, okay, how do we make money? The game that I'm playing with our team is how do you make money without raising prices to your customers, which is a really fun game. And you'd be surprised how many people can't come up with a creative answer to that, such as cut costs.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We've been in a grow at all costs get massive. It's a very scale driven business while keeping customers satisfied. We have a pretty high NPS. So those have been the two metrics. We're now the seventh largest freight forwarder out of 6,000 on the Asia to US lane. There's been a lot of chaos with trade wars, a lot of uncertainty introduced. We're now paying a billion dollars a year to the federal government in tariffs that we pay on behalf of our customers. So a big shift for Flexport is those two things. It's one, how do we help our customers respond to trade war, which means expanding geographically from just China focused to all Southeast Asia, South India, South Asia, building up global capabilities? We were heavily concentrated on China to US as a company. That's one. And then two is really look at unit economics. How do we generate cash so that we can reinvest in the business? I think we've gotten to scale.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We view ourselves as a media company in order for us to really be a true media company, we need to have as many mirrors and homes as possible. So for year two for us, it's simplistic, but it's just accelerating the speed with which we get more mirrors into more homes. We also start to think a little bit more about how we can expand our subscription revenue through introducing premium content-like personal training. And you'll start to see us moving beyond fitness into other categories kind of like dipping our toe in the water as we start to learn what makes a great mirror experience outside of our core offer”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hard to disconnect. It is. The job is 24 7. When I try to get away from it intermittently, if you're spending time with my wife and four kids, you try to be all there for them when you're there. But sometimes you get pulled away and you can't be there and then you come back. But it's hard. And in terms of recharging at the risk of pandering to a fellow podcaster, exercise is phenomenal. And the product for those who have not used it, the mirror is awesome. It truly is. And I'll do everything. I used to go run all the time. I have a peloton, which I love, and it gives you a great cardio workout. But when you're done with the workout in the mirror, by the way, those trainers are on you the entire time. So if you want to disconnect, you're disconnected because you can't be thinking about anything other than this trainer who was staring at you from your die. And you're done with it and you feel like you have a total full body workout.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there's like an implied threat of violence in everything. I've had to take better care of myself. She get bigger and have more responsibility, more employees looking up to you and stuff and more sleep and less alcohol to try to really take care of myself has been a really important because that stuff was leading to me to not have too much anxiety. And I think anxiety is pretty toxic. You got to get it out of your bloodstream.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You decide to build a business, you're making the commitment that you're never going to have a checklist where you're going to say mirror check finished for the day. I mean, it's just constant. So to me, it's having a business that I love and a team that I love so that when I am very much working continuously, it doesn't really feel like work. It feels like spending time solving problems with people that I like spending time with. So I'm attempting to integrate sort of more pauses into my day, but I do find that if you love what you do, then it doesn't really feel like work.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Didn't have enough cash. Well, you start racking up fees at the port of like, so now because you don't have cash, you're generating fees. And yeah, a lot of that is entrepreneurship is not fun. Said we had some celebrities here who have started companies. I'm like, why?”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Export has been fairly easy compared to my previous companies, which were like way harder. If you have a good business, sometimes it's way easier than a really hard business. It attracts more talent. Success just sort of compounds on itself. But actually, I was working with my older brother. I did have a boss technique. He was my brother, was with this motorcycle company. And we would have many, many spirals of death where you don't have a lot of money. What we would do with byproducts, we didn't have enough money to buy the entire container load of motorcycles. So we put 30% down and then try to sell them while they were on the water.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I think for me, I signed the documents for my CRN of funding the day that my son was born from the hospital. So I literally closed my first round of money and then two weeks later went to my first office with a team of zero thought, you know, what did I sign up for exactly here? So I think that's certainly a low moment. But I think fundamentally when you have like clear mission vision and you're the type of person where you see a wall and your thought is how do I get through that wall? I just can't imagine operating any differently when I hit those moments. It just sort of like in my DNA.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I agree totally with what you say. Ultimately, you're going to be valued at sort of like discounted cash flow basis. On some time horizon, you have to be. And I think the technology shouldn't increase your multiple, except to the extent that increases your free cash flow over time and makes things sticky or something. We do call ourselves a technology company, but also we're a freight company and we're not embarrassed to be both. And I think sort of like as light a wave or a particle. I don't know, you have to be both. We use tech to do a few things. It's a network. So you want to connect companies with their suppliers, make that seamless of communications, you need technology to make that work. Really good chat function. And it's in context about the shipment, what's going on, as well as with their underlying asset owners who are moving it. So trucking companies, ocean carriers, how do you connect everybody in one place to make it simpler? And I think at the end of the day, simplicity is what you're looking for in your supply chain. That means different things. Like if you're a very small company, it's like, please teach me this and make it simple.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's a phasing issue. Going back to sort of the top themes in fitness, I think our customer relies on us to be the curator of great experiences and the way that we can do that is by owning those experiences in the early days and being able to learn and iterate quickly. And then over time, we imagine that a smaller and smaller percentage of those experiences will be mere original and they'll be made through partners.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So many of the companies we see today are tech enabled, and you almost have to be. I can't imagine trying to compete in this marketplace and either disrupt a market or address up a big consumer base without using technology. I think there is an interesting challenge with evaluating some of these companies and valuing some of these companies because companies like to say that they're tech companies because they think it's going to get them a higher valuation in the reality is it's just tech enabled. And I would just encourage all entrepreneurs is to use technology to help your company grow. But ultimately, your company is going to grow and be mature one day. And so I wouldn't position as a tech company that's not a tech company. I'd position as to what it ultimately is to your end consumers and the growth trajectory and profitability profile you're able to build will speak for self over time.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So they actually developed this product and they're going to go sell this thing for like, I don't know, a couple thousand dollars each. And they're ready to sell it. And you can't ship a flamethrower in the US. There's restrictions against shipping a flamethrower. Flexport could probably find a flamethrower. So they call it not a flamethrower. They literally name the thing not a flamethrower to get around the thing and they sell out. I think it was like the most money he made that quarter was on selling like 25,000 flamethrowerers or something like that. So I can imagine. I bought one of them. I don't know why. Did you really? Yeah, my wife is not pleased. Must be finding the backyard.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, it's fascinating because the stories and the companies are quite different, but the themes are consistent in terms of what we see. So I think what Bryn has tapped into around health and wellness and unique experiences that consumers are looking for is exactly what the market's looking for right now and the kind of, I like the concept of customer flywheel. But as a user of her product and knowing people who use it and love it in the word of mouth and the way that spreads is quite impressive. And that's exactly what investors are looking for. They're looking for products that people are passionate about. On Ryan's side, if you think about what investors are looking to fund, they look for TAM. There's no bigger total addressable market than what he's going after if it's 10% of global GDP. It's a pretty significant market. And can the existing business be disrupted? And whether it's with technology or a different approach? And so these themes are quite consistent to what we see all day long. I'll just say one aside, and you can cut this out of your podcast if you want. But I'm laughing at your comment about regulations. It was with Elon and he was like one of the end of these cradles.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then I started at number business along the way. One of them is still going, it's pretty successful and quite profitable. So that one was able to fund Flexport for the first four years. People don't know this, but I was the only employee of Flexport for four years trying really hard to get something off the ground. And I probably put before we raise any capital, yeah, almost a half a million dollars into it from personal, from money that I'd made in previous companies. Eventually, I went on and raised tons of money, but in the beginning we were very bootstrapped and self-financed.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I come from a bricks and mortar business. My first studio was started with $15,000 of my own savings, and Studio 1 had to pay for Studio 2, pay for Studio 3. So I really believe in the customer flywheel. And I think that you build a great customer flywheel by being a customer obsessed business. So for us, it was really thinking not as sort of a tech first company, but as a customer first company about what kind of content, what kind of community, what kind of interaction would really inspire our customers to tell five friends. And that's how we sort of have thought about building the business.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Got about 10,000 companies that trade on the platform, so it's kind of a thousand companies in the US, a few hundred in Europe, and then all of their factories around the world. We connect companies to their factories, make it seamless for them to trade and transact freight shipments. So it's a lot of up and coming brands, a lot of fast-moving sort of like new direct-to-consumer brands, and then more traditional companies that are trying to transform themselves, make themselves more agile and less slow moving.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Pretty much a lack of technology in international freight companies, so you'd like to be able to see where your stuff is, when is it going to arrive, what paperwork are you going to need, all the regulatory compliance things across borders? There's a huge amount of complexity. And I felt like I've always felt like the industry George Bernard Shaw has this quote. He says, every profession is a conspiracy against the laity. And it seems like freight forwarding is just the poster child for that. They're like all kinds of acronyms and weird terms that no one understands. And it seems like they're used to take advantage of the customer. So we thought a combination of technology and then a really customer obsessed culture. We try to help our customers win that you could actually make a much better version of the service.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Me as success and fitness today kind of focuses on three themes, I would say convenience, curation, and quality. And we're really tackling those by building the only direct channel into the home for original content.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Motorcycles. From there, I was very frustrated by the experience of shipping stuff. I thought it was really difficult, especially for a small company to deal with these big bureaucratic shipping companies. So I just eventually decided to start a company to compete with them. Get better for entrepreneurs.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Started a bunch of companies. I've never had a job other than I made pizza at Domino's when I was in high school. I still reference Salmon's pizza in executive committee meetings. I'm like, what? You were a pizza boy. My first business was importing stuff from China and selling it on the internet. So it wasn't a startup. We didn't call it a startup. We're just trying to make money.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've spent my whole life in health and wellness, but started off as a professional dancer at the New York City Ballet when I was a teenager, went to Harvard, kept dancing professionally, and then got involved in fitness really as a side hustle, a way to make ends meet while I was dancing. When I retired, I opened a chain of fitness studios called Refine Method that are now about 10 years old. And learnings from Refine Method led to the creation of Mir about three years ago.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, is the eighth time we've done this conference and the environment and atmosphere at the conference is indicative of the environment for entrepreneurship, which is hugely energizing, a bunch of great ideas, and it's been interesting to see the exchange amongst the entrepreneurs about what they're doing across so many different categories. I think the state of entrepreneurship generally is quite exciting right now. The public equity markets and the private equity markets are so focused on growth and attracting growth, and they're looking for new businesses and new business ideas and new categories that have been developed. And so to be able to be here and talk to the various people who've built these businesses and companies and have them engage with each other and share best practices and share problems and share challenges is quite exciting.”
2019-10-30 · Goldman Sachs Exchanges · Why Startups Shouldn’t All Be Pitched As ‘Tech Companies’ · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT